UC-NRLF 


B    SME  _ 

MR  CLEVELAND 

A  Personal  Impression 


Jesse  Lynch  Williams 


REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Class 


a;  u,   a    v—u-v- 


CLEVELAND 


Copyright,  1907,  by  Underwood  &  Underwood,  N.  Y. 


MR.  CLEVELAND  AND  HIS 
YOUNGEST   SON,   FRANCIS 


MR  CLEVELAND 

A  Personal  Impression 

|1  By 

Jesse  Lynch  Williams 


NEW  YORK 

Dodd,  Mead  &  Company 
1909 


COPYRIGHT,   1909,   BY  DODI),  MEAD  AND  COMPANY 
PUBLISHED,  MARCH,  1909 


COMPOSITION  AND  ELECTROTYPE  PLATES 
BY  D.  B.  UPDIKE,  THE  MERRYMOUNT  PRESS,  BOSTON 


TO   THE   ONE   WHO    KNEW    HIM   BEST 


191194 


MR  CLEVELAND 

A  Personal  Impression 
A 

So  much  has  been  written  about  Gro- 
ver  Cleveland,  whom  the  world  ad 
mired,  and  so  little  about  Mr.  Cleve 
land,  whom  his  friends  loved,  that  it  is 
right,  now  that  this  great  figure  has 
passed  into  history,  to  tell  of  that  side 
of  his  life  and  personality  revealed  to 
those  who  had  the  privilege  of  know 
ing  this  man  as  a  private  citizen  and  a 
good  neighbor,  rather  than  as  a  pub 
lic  personage  and  a  great  statesman. 

For  except  that  he  was  given  to 
shooting  ducks  and  passed  his  mellow 
latter  years  in  serene,  academic  seclu 
sion,  there  is  less  known  about  the  hu 
man  side  of  this  President  than  of  any 
public  character  our  country  has  pro- 


CLEVELAND 
duced.  While  he  was  with  us  those  who 
knew  him  kept  silent,  out  of  regard  for 
his  own  habitual  reserve.  Now  that  he 
is  gone,  however,  they  should  speak, 
out  of  equally  sincere  regard  for  his 
memory.  For  the  public  forms  its 
opinions  of  the  private  side  of  public 
characters  whether  the  latter  like  it  or 
not.  It  is  the  penalty  of  fame.  And 
those  who  like  it  least  and  try  hardest 
to  retain  the  simple  luxury  of  privacy 
are  the  ones  to  suffer  most. 

The  lies  about  Mr.  Cleveland's  sin 
gularly  beautiful  home  life — such  pre 
posterous  lies  that  they  would  seem 
amusing  to  those  who  knew,  if  they 
had  not  been  so  painful  to  those  whom 
they  concerned — are  no  longer  be 
lieved,  I  suppose,  by  any  one.  But  the 
effect  of  this  upon  a  man  by  nature 
extremely  reserved,  yet  possessed  of  a 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

delicacy  of  feeling  which  few  people 
understood,  was  to  increase  a  strange 
physical  shyness,  of  which  the  world 
never  suspected  this  great  rugged  fig 
ure.  It  resulted  in  an  abnormal  shrink 
ing  from  public  gaze,  which  was  some 
times  misconstrued,  but  which  per 
sisted  all  through  his  life  and  was  felt 
even  in  the  last  rites  in  death.  His 
funeral,  more  private  than  that  of  many 
an  ordinary  citizen,  was  so  dramatically 
simple,  indeed,  that  the  representa 
tives  of  foreign  Powers  present  could 
hardly  conceal  their  surprise,  and  the 
representatives  of  the  press  could  not 
understand  why  they  were  excluded 
from  the  obsequies  of  the  nation's  ex- 
President. 

i 

THE  quality  which  impressed  one  most 
on  becoming  acquainted  with  Mr. 

[3] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

Cleveland  was  not  his  greatness — one 
had  anticipated  that;  but  his  genial 
kindliness  and  his  quiet,  pervasive  hu 
mor.  He  even  had  charm.  These  char 
acteristics  I,  for  one,  had  not  anticipated 
at  all.  I  had  pictured  him,  as  many  per 
haps  still  see  him,  a  gruff,  old  warrior, 
resting  after  his  battles,  brooding  over 
the  past;  silent,  except  when  stirred 
occasionally  to  pronouncing  a  poly 
syllabic  profundity ;  august,  austere,  a 
personage  difficult  to  know  and  im 
possible  to  love.  I  expected  to  admire 
him,  but  it  never  occurred  to  me  that 
one  might  like  him;  still  less  that  he 
might  care  to  be  liked  by  those  among 
whom  he  had  cast  his  lot. 

I  think  every  one  who  had  a  chance 
to  know  him  must  have  felt  affection 
for  him.  Sam,  his  coachman,  used  to  say: 
"The  finest  Dimmycrat  I  ever  knew. 

[4] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

I'm  a  Republican."  The  evening  after 
Mr.  Cleveland's  funeral  he  said:  "I 
could  hardly  drive  for  the  tears  runnin' 
down  me  face.  The  finest  man  I  ever 
knew,  Dimmycrat  or  Republican!" 

The  atmosphere  of  greatness — that 
subtle  emanation  of  real  power — was 
always  present,  always  felt,  more  so 
than  in  the  case  of  any  man  I  ever  met. 
So  often  it  evaporates  when  once  you 
have  seen  enough  to  disassociate  the 
man  from  the  name.  But  there  was  no 
thing  gruff  or  severe  about  this  plea 
sant,  simple-mannered,  large-framed 
man,  comfortably  seated  by  his  library 
fireplace,  saying  little,  but  listening 
carefully,  sympathetically  in  fact,  to 
all  that  was  being  said,  with  a  ready 
smile  for  whatever  might  be  amusing, 
a  kindly  solicitude  for  the  comfort  of 
your  seat  and  a  grave  carefulness  in  the 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

selection  of  your  cigar.  "Well,  I  guess 
there's  no  law  against  our  smoking," 
was  his  frequent  phrase.  He  seemed,  as 
a  friend  once  remarked,  "just  as  much 
interested  in  giving  me  a  good  time  as 
I  was  in  trying  to  entertain  him." 

But  no  one,  not  even  the  most  in 
timate,  thought  of  being  familiar  with 
him.  He  always  insisted  upon  carrying 
his  gun-case  himself  when  making  the 
annual  pilgrimage,  and  upon  drawing 
lots  for  position  on  the  shooting 
grounds;  but  he  also  insisted  upon  due 
respect  to  the  high  office  he  had  held. 
Some  of  the  numerous  invitations  to 
address  quasi-important  gatherings 
annoyed  him:  "They've  got  nerve  to 
expect  a  former  President  to  attend 
their  show."  He  did  not  say  "me," 
but  "a  former  President." 

His  voice  in  conversation  was  a  lit- 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

tie  higher  than  one  would  expect  from 
such  a  large  man.  It  was  undoubtedly 
what  foreigners  would  call  an  Ameri 
can  voice,  somewhat  nasal,  though  not 
unpleasant,  and  with  something  in  it 
that  reminded  me  of  the  way  I  sup 
posed  Lincoln's  voice  sounded.  When 
he  referred  to  his  old  friends  and  as 
sociates,  there  was  tenderness  in  it,  as 
he  pronounced  their  names, — "Joe" 
Jefferson  or  "Tom"  Bayard,  and  oth 
ers,  less  known  to  fame,  but  equally 
dear  to  him.  The  world  only  heard  of 
the  famous  ones,  but  it  never  occurred 
to  him  to  arrange  his  friendships  on 
any  basis  but  the  real  one — or  that 
his  more  obscure  chums  were  not  just 
as  interesting  to  quote  and  tell  about. 
An  old  gunner,  an  interesting  char 
acter  who  used  to  take  the  ex-Presi 
dent  shooting,  appeared  at  the  gates 
[7] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

of  Westland  on  the  morning  of  the  fu 
neral.  He,  like  the  rest  of  the  public, 
was  refused  admission  by  the  guard. 
"But  I've  got  to  get  in.  He  was  my 
best  friend.  I've  got  to  see  him!" 

"  Well,  you  can  go  up  to  the  house," 
the  guard  finally  said,  to  humor  him, 
"but  they  won't  let  you  in." 

When  his  name  and  his  request 
reached  Mrs.  Cleveland  she  at  once 
sent  down  word  to  admit  him,  and  a 
few  minutes  later  he  was  seen  leaving 
Westland  with  tears  running  down 
his  tanned  cheeks.  He  had  taken  his 
last  look  at  the  features  of  his  best 
friend.  The  only  person  outside  of  the 
circle  of  relatives,  neighbors  and  inti 
mates  to  see  the  dead  face  was  this 
weather-beaten  old  gunner. 

Great  men  are  so  often  great  bores, 
— admirable,  but  interesting  chiefly  as 

[8] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

curiosities.  Friendship  seldom  thrives 
on  greatness.  It  takes  two  to  make  a 
quarrel  or  a  friendship.  It  requires  giv 
ing  as  well  as  receiving.  Greatness  is 
apt  to  consume  the  capacity  for  real 
friendship.  Mr.  Cleveland,  however, 
was  one  of  those  who  made  and  kept 
real  friends.  He  set  great  store  by 
them.  He  liked  to  be  with  them.  Na 
turally,  they  liked  to  be  with  him — 
not,  however,  because  it  was  an  honor 
and  a  privilege  and  a  liberal  educa 
tion,  merely,  but  because  he  was  such 
good  company. 

He  was  not  a  great  talker.  Once  in 
a  while  something  would  start  him 
going,  and  he  would  run  on  for  half  an 
evening  with  reminiscences  and  com 
ments  on  men  and  events, — wonder 
ful  talk  which  ought  to  have  been  re 
corded  even  if  never  printed, — but  for 
[9] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

the  most  part  he  let  others  do  the 
talking ;  he  listened.  Like  many  men 
of  attainment,  though  not  all,  he  was 
a  most  inspiring  listener,  with  a  flat 
tering  manner  of  regarding  you  while 
talking  as  if  your  views  upon  the  topic 
of  conversation  were  quite  as  worthy 
of  attention  as  his  own.  He  really 
thought  so.  He  was  the  most  immod 
erately  modest  of  men,  as  nearly  de 
void  of  vanity  as  it  is  safe  for  a  hu 
man  to  be.  He  took  an  honest  pride 
in  the  work  he  had  done  for  his  coun 
try,  but  he  knew  he  was  not  brilliant, 
and  thought  he  had  no  unusual  gifts 
— he  was  right ;  there  was  nothing  ex 
traordinary  about  his  qualities,  except 
the  degree  to  which  he  had  developed 
them,  and  perhaps  the  proportion  in 
which  he  possessed  them. 

His  grave  quietness,  however,  was 
1  [  10] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

not  of  the  heavy,  crushing  kind  which 
renders  conversation  painful  or  impos 
sible;  it  was  thoughtful,  suggestive, 
often  stimulating.  He  had  a  real  "gift" 
of  silence.  It  expressed  comment,  ap 
probation,  reproof,  applause. 

As  an  illustration  of  this  striking 
trait  and  of  how  the  public  often  mis 
understood  him,  the  following  incident 
of  an  historic  day  will  serve.  On  the 
afternoon  that  President  McKinley 
was  shot  at  Buffalo,  he  was  fishing  with 
a  friend  in  a  small  lake  in  the  Berk- 
shires.  At  about  sunset  a  man  was  seen 
rowing  rapidly  out  towards  the  ex- 
President's  boat.  "Mr.  Cleveland,  Mr. 
Cleveland,"  he  shouted  as  he  drew 
within  call,  "  President  McKinley  has 
been  assassinated!" 

The  ex-President  did  not  start;  he 
simply  looked  at  the  stranger,  too  much 

["  i 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

Amazed  by  this  bolt  out  of  the  blue  to 
ysay  anything.  The  man  came  nearer. 
"  I  tell  you,"  he  repeated,  panting  from 
his  rapid  rowing,  "President  McKin- 
ley  has  been  shot — killed!" 

Mr.  Cleveland  scrutinized  the  stran 
ger  a  moment  in  grave  silence,  be 
traying  nothing  of  what  he  thought  or 
felt.  Then  making  a  sign  to  show  that 
he  had  heard  and  appreciated  what  the 
man  wished  to  say,  his  gaze  dropped 
to  his  line  again,  though  of  course  he 
was  not  thinking  of  fishing  now.  The 
bearer  of  bad  tidings  looked  at  the  ap 
parently  stolid  figure  of  the  silent  fish 
erman.  "You  don't  seem  to  be  much 
excited  about  it,"  he  muttered,  and 
putting  about  rowed  slowly  to  shore. 
Mr.  Cleveland  waited  a  little  while 
still  in  profound  silence,  then  thought 
fully  reeling  in  his  line,  he  merely  said 

[   12] 


CLEVELAND 
to  his  friend,  "Well,  I  guess  we  may 
as  well  go."  On  the  way  to  shore  he 
disjointed  his  rod  in  his  careful,  delib 
erate  manner,  put  it  in  the  case,  still 
saying  nothing.  At  the  landing  he  was 
met  by  the  nearest  local  correspondent 
for  a  New  York  newspaper,  also  quite 
excited  and  not  a  little  embarrassed 
by  his  unwelcome  assignment.  "I'm 
sorry  to  trouble  you,  sir,"  he  said,  "but 
my  paper  wants  me  to  get  two  hun 
dred  words  from  you  on  the  assassina 
tion  of  the  President." 

Mr.  Cleveland  at  first  shook  his 
head.  "Say  this,"  he  finally  answered, 
"that  in  common  with  all  decent,  pa 
triotic  American  citizens  I  am  so  hor 
rified  by  this  report  that  I  am  unable 
to  say  anything."  Then  turning  hastily 
away  he  drove  off  with  his  friend,  and 
for  some  time  said  nothing  even  to 
[  is] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

him,  as  the  carriage  jolted  over  the 
hilly  roads  and  the  sunset  faded.  Then 
suddenly  as  if  they  had  been  talking 
all  the  time,  he  said  aloud,  "Well,  it 
may  not  be  true."  Presently  he  added, 
"  It  may  be  true  that  he  has  been  shot; 
it  may  not  be  true  that  he  has  been 
killed"  (which  proved  to  be  the  case). 
After  that  there  was  still  a  longer 
silence  until  finally  just  before  the  end 
of  the  drive — it  was  now  quite  dark 
— he  began  to  talk  (and  note  the  ex 
traordinary  prescience  of  the  conclu 
sion  he  reached  as  a  result  of  his  slow, 
silent  brooding  upon  the  momentous 
tidings):  First  of  all,  he  said,  if  the 
report  were  true  the  thing  could  hard 
ly  have  been  done  by  a  disappointed 
office-seeker  as  in  the  case  of  "poor 
Garfield;"  the  circumstances  at  the 
time  were  not  such  as  to  make  that 

[14] 


CLEVELAND 
probable.  Nor,  he  explained,  was  it 
likely  that  labor  troubles  could  have 
been  the  immediate  cause ;  there  were 
no  strikes  of  importance  on  at  the 
time.  Other  possible  causes  and  agen 
cies  were  passed  in  review  and  cast 
aside  as  possible,  but  hardly  probable. 
"  So,"  he  added  quietly,  but  with  the 
divination  of  a  seer  of  old,  "if  McKin- 
ley  has  been  shot,  there  is  no  other  ex 
planation  than;  that  it  has  been  by  the 
hand  of  some  foreign  anarchist."  And 
within  a  few  hours  he  was  reliably  in 
formed  that  this  precisely  was  the  case ! 
Later,  when  Mr.  McKinley  died,  the 
whole  world,  including,  no  doubt,  the 
stranger  in  the  rowboat,  was  surprised 
and  touched  at  the  depth  of  feeling 
shown  by  this  rugged  old  statesman  in 
his  public  utterance  concerning  the 
Nation's  great  calamity. 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

Another  example  of  his  unconscious 
"trick  of  silence"  in  a  different  mood 
may  suggest  a  little  of  the  quiet, 
pervasive  humor  his  friends  knew 
and  liked.  One  of  his  neighbors  who 
dropped  in  to  smoke  with  him  one 
evening,  said : "  By  the  way,  Mr.  Cleve 
land,  let  me  show  you  a  new  way  to 
cut  your  cigar,  a  more  hygienic  way;" 
and  he  illustrated  it.  "  First  you  start 
as  if  you  were  going  to  cut  the  end  off 
in  the  usual  manner,  but  stop  halfway 
through,  like  this.  Then  begin  at  the 
very  tip,  you  see,  and  cut  straight  in, 
so,  until  you  strike  the  other  cut ;  re 
move  the  segment  thus  formed,  and 
now  you  have  not  only  a  greater  draw 
ing  area,  but  also,  by  holding  the  cigar 
in  your  mouth  this  side  up,  there  is 
formed  a  sort  of  cup  which  catches  all 
the  nicotine."  Mr.  Cleveland  listened 
[  16] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

with  grave  interest  until  his  good  friend 
had  quite  finished,  then  without  a  word 
or  a  smile,  he  picked  up  a  cigar,  snipped 
off  the  entire  end  in  the  old  accustomed 
manner,  and  set  to  smoking  with  great 
satisfaction  and  no  audible  comment. 
Once  these  two  were  angling  for  a 
very  large  bass  which  had  been  seen 
several  times  lurking  near  a  certain 
rock.  The  professor  suddenly  got  him 
on  his  hook,  but  lost  him.  "Naturally," 
said  the  other  fisherman,  addressing 
the  bass,  "you  did  n't  care  to  be  caught 
by  a  mere  amateur,  you  were  just  wait 
ing  for  the  master  hand ;"  and  presently, 
sure  enough,  the  same  big  fellow  got 
on  Mr.  Cleveland's  hook.  "What  did 
I  tell  you?"  he  remarked,  carefully 
playing  the  fish;  "he  was  just  waiting 
for  the  master"-— But  at  that  point 
the  bass  wriggled  off  again.  Mr.  Cleve- 
[  17] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

land  gazed  thoughtfully  at  the  water 
for  a  moment,  then  shot  a  twinkling 
glance  at  his  companion,  straightway 
turned  his  face  away  again  and  pro 
ceeded  to  fish  in  silence. 

In  a  copy  of  his  "Shooting  and 
Fishing  Sketches,"  which  he  presented 
to  a  young  friend  whose  profession  was 
writing,  he  penned  this  inscription: 

'To >  with  apologies, 

from  Grover  Cleveland."  The  young 
man's  delight,  by  the  way,  at  possess 
ing  an  autograph  copy  was  almost 
equalled  by  his  perplexity  in  acknow 
ledging  it.  He  could  not  ignore  the 
inscription  and  it  seemed  impossible 
to  answer  it.  "Write  a  note  saying 
'Your  apologies  are  accepted!'"  sug 
gested  a  friend. 

Mr.    Cleveland's   humor  was   dis 
tinctly  of  the  American  type — at  least 

[18] 


CLEVELAND 
what  foreigners  call  the  American 
type.  One  of  his  favorite  stories  was  of 
the  farmer  who  wanted  so  much  to 
commit  suicide  that  in  order  to  make 
sure  of  it  he  loaded  a  revolver,  tied  a 
rope  to  the  limb  of  a  tree  overhanging 
a  deep  river,  slipped  a  noose  around 
his  neck,  and  pushed  out  into  the  mid 
dle  of  the  stream.  But  when  he  kicked 
the  boat  out  from  under  him  the  jar 
discharged  the  revolver,  the  shot  cut 
the  rope,  he  was  dumped  into  the  water 
-"and  if  I  hadn't  been  able  to 
swim,"  said  the  farmer,  "  I  might  have 
drowned." 

He  was  fond  of  telling  about  the 
time  he  reproved  his  dear  old  friend 
Joe  Jefferson  for  jerking  a  fish  and 
thus  losing  him.  "Why  did  you  jerk 
that  fish?"  he  demanded,  and  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  turned  with  a  whimsical  look 
[19] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

of  reproach,  and  said:  "He  jerked  me 
first." 

It  also  amused  him  to  relate  the  in 
cident  of  the  old  negro  aunty  down  on 
Mr.  Jefferson's  plantation  in  Louisi 
ana.  "There  was  only  one  picture  in 
her  cabin,  and  it  happened  to  be  one 
of  me — from  some  newspaper.  'Who 
is  that?'  asked  Joe.  'I  don't  jes  re 
member,  suh,  but  I  reckon  it's  John 
the  Baptist.'" 

At  the  formal  opening  of  the  St. 
Louis  Exposition  in  1903,  where  the 
ex-President  and  the  President  made 
addresses,  they  were  both  guests  at  a 
dinner  given  by  Governor  Francis  to 
twenty-four  distinguished  personages. 
The  President  sat  on  the  host's  right 
and  the  ex-President  on  his  left.  The 
one  talked  interestingly  and  the  other 
listened  interestedly  and  for  the  most 

[   20] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

part  in  silence;  until  toward  the  end 
of  the  dinner,  turning  to  the  vigorous 
young  President  for  whom  he  cher 
ished  a  considerate  regard,  despite  ra 
dical  differences  in  temperament  and 
opinion,  he  remarked :"  Young  man, 
do  you  realize  that  I  'm  old  enough  to 
be  your  father?"  and  he  added  in  the 
same  quietly  jocose  manner,  "Do  you 
realize  that  after  you  get  through  be 
ing  president,  you've  got  to  come  back 
and  take  your  place  in  the  ranks  with 
the  rest  of  us?" 

The  President's  attitude  toward  his 
predecessor,  it  should  be  added,  was 
always  that  of  filial  respect.  "You 
know  I  always  feel  toward  your  hus 
band,"  he  once  whispered  to  Mrs. 
Cleveland  when  they  met  at  a  football 
game, "as  a  freshman  toward  a  senior." 

One  more  instance  of  his  latent  hu- 

[21   ] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

mor  and  of  the  unexpected  way  it  was 
always  cropping  out.  One  day  as  he 
and  a  neighbor  were  starting  off  for 
an  afternoon  stroll,  the  ex-President 
stopped  a  moment  to  glance  at  some 
plumbers  at  work  on  the  leaders  of  a 
wing  of  his  house,— for  it  is  a  sad 
thought,  or  if  you  choose,  a  comfort 
ing  one,  that  even  former  presidents 
are  not  exempt  from  plumbers.  Turn 
ing  to  his  friend  he  remarked  gravely, 
"I  wonder  how  it  would  look  to  put 
another  story  on  this  wing." 

"Oh,  were  you  thinking  of  doing 
that?"  asked  his  companion  with  inno 
cent  surprise.  "Why?" 

"We  could  have  more  bedrooms," 
Mr.  Cleveland  replied  reflectively. 

"Do  you  really  want  more  bed 
rooms  ? " 

"Well,  you  see,"  he  answered,  still 

[  22] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

within  hearing  of  the  plumbers  now 
workingindustriously,"they  're  around 
here  all  the  time,  so  they  might  as  well 
sleep  here.  It  would  save  them  the 
walk."  Then  talking  of  other  matters 
he  went  on  with  his  stroll. 

ii 

AFTER  the  first  surprise  at  finding  him 
genial  and  approachable,  the  abiding 
impression  of  this  man's  personality 
was  his  plain  honesty.  Of  this  trait,  to 
be  sure,  everyone  was  aware,  but  the 
degree  to  which  his  sense  of  truth  was 
developed  seems  abnormal. 

"He  was  the  honestest  man  I  ever 
knew,"  as  a  certain  distinguished  law 
yer  said  who  had  known  Mr.  Cleve 
land  long  and  intimately.  It  seemed  to 
be  an  innate  quality  and  manifested  it 
self  early  in  life,  not  an  acquired  char- 

[23  J 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

acteristic  as  with  many  children  who 
turn  out  to  be  good  men  after  all.  It 
was  the  only  precocious  thing  about 
him  as  a  child.  He  could  hardly  have 
been  more  than  four  or  five  years  old 
when  one  day  he  was  found  crying  bit 
terly  because  a  pedler  who  had  visited 
the  house  had  accidently  dropped  a 
pair  of  suspenders  and  was  now  too  far 
down  the  road  for  the  little  fellow  to 
catch  up  with  him  and  return  them. 

The  story  of  the  neighborly  hen  who 
persisted  in  laying  eggs  in  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Cleveland's  yard  has  already  been 
told.  The  boy  Grover  soberly  carried 
them  back  to  the  neighbor's  house  each 
day,  and  finally  made  such  a  fuss  about 
it  that  the  hen  had  to  be  suppressed. 

Truth  was  a  passion  with  him,  al 
most  a  mania.  One  of  his  friends  tells 
a  story  to  the  point.  Mr.  Cleveland  had 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

been  relating  his  first  experience  in 
killing  a  salmon;  the  guide  had  given 
him  the  usual  admonition  that  when  a 
fish  struck  he  must  keep  his  thumb  off 
the  reel  until  the  fish  swallowed  the 
hook.  Presently  a  beautiful  fish  struck, 
and  struck  hard,  but  flopped  off. 

"  I  told  you  to  keep  your  thumb  off 
the  reel,"  said  the  guide. 

"I  didn't  have  my  thumb  on  the 
reel,"  was  the  reply. 

"But,  "he  added  in  relating  the  story, 
"I  oughtn't  to  have  said  that;  I'm 
afraid  my  thumb  grazed  the  reel.  I  Ve 
thought  of  it  again  and  again ;  it  was  n't 
right  for  me  to  contradict  him.  The 
guide  couldn't  answer  back;"  and  he 
actually  looked  as  troubled  about  it  as 
if  it  had  happened  that  morning  in 
stead  of  years  ago.  No  further  refer 
ence  was  made  to  the  story  by  either 

[25] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

of  them  until  suddenly  a  couple  of  days 
later  Mr.  Cleveland  said,  "I  'd  like  to 
show  you  just  how  my  thumb  was  with 
reference  to  that  reel,"  and  he  illustrated 
with  his  rod. 

"  Well,  if  that  was  the  position,"  said 
his  friend,  "it  didn't  tighten  the  line 
in  the  least,  and  you  were  all  right." 

The  other  thought  it  over  a  mo 
ment.  "I  hope  so,"  he  said,  "I  hope 


so." 


The  democratic  mode  of  his  private 
life  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  if  an 
ideal  to  which  he  consciously  adhered. 
With  him  it  was  a  good  deal  more 
than  a  well-followed  creed;  it  was  a 
spontaneous  expression  of  his  person 
ality,  due  to  his  inherent  honesty.  He 
liked  simple  things  because  he  was 
simple.  He  was  of  the  soil.  He  had 

but  few  forms,  though  these  he  ob- 
[26] 


MR.  CLEVELAND 

served  strictly  and  expected  others  to 
observe.  The  inevitable  vanities  and 
artificialities  of  a  highly  organized 
stage  of  society  were  not  wrong,  but 
distasteful  to  him.  He  felt  their  incon 
gruity  with  himself.  In  short,  he  had 
humor — not  the  chirping  facetious- 
ness  of  the  generation  which  prates  to 
an  unhumorous  extent  about  its  sense 
of  humor,  but  the  real  thing,  the  inner 
vision  of  truth  which  is  the  beginning 
of  wisdom  and  its  end. 

He  liked  and  enjoyed  all  the  real 
things  of  life  and  despised  the  unreal. 
That  was  why  he  had  real  friends. 
Only  a  few  people,  even  obscure  ones, 
have  real  friends  in  their  old  age.  But 
among  the  great,  history  shows  a  still 
smaller  proportion  so  blessed.  It  is  apt 
to  be  lonely  on  the  heights. 

That  was  one  keynote  of  his  char- 

[27] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

acter,  but  along  with  his  simple  love 
of  truth  there  existed  a  cognate  qual 
ity  which,  however,  does  not  always 
accompany  it ;  and  that  was  an  active 
sense  of  responsibility  to  some  power 
higher  than  ourselves.  In  one  of  those 
rare  moments  in  his  usually  light  con 
versation  when  he  broke  through  his 
habitual  reserve  and  showed  what  he 
thought  about  deeply,  he  once  said  to 
a  friend:  "I  don't  see  how  a  demo 
cratic  people,  struggling  and  fighting 
for  its  needs  and  desires,  can  continue 
to  exist  as  a  free  people  without  the 
idea  of  something  in  visible  above  them 
to  which  they  believe  themselves  ac 
countable." 

Like  all  great  truths,  this  has  been 
said  before.  The  point  here  is  that  he 
believed  it,  and  that  in  these  two  fun 
damental  qualities,  the  vision  of  truth 

[  28  ] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

and  the  sense  of  one's  unshirkable  ac 
countability,  and  in  courage,  which 
was  their  offspring,  are  to  be  found  the 
determining  motives  of  his  life. 

in 

MR.  CLEVELAND'S  daily  life  in  Prince 
ton  has  often  been  described — some 
times  correctly.  Eight  o'clock  was  the 
sacred  hour  for  breakfast.  His  mail 
occupied  most  of  the  morning,  and 
sometimes  the  whole  day ;  for  the  se 
cretary  often  referred  to  in  despatches 
from  Princeton  did  not  exist,  and  he 
liked  to  attend  to  things  himself,  ex 
cept  when  Mrs.  Cleveland  insisted  up 
on  helping  him.  Sometimes  he  called 
in  a  stenographer  from  among  the 
students,  but  he  wrote  an  astonishing 
number  of  letters  with  his  own  hand. 
On  the  occasion  of  his  seventieth 
[29] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

birthday  he  was  overwhelmed  with 
letters  of  congratulation.  He  gave  up 
a  fishing  trip  he  had  planned  and  an 
swered  all  the  personal  ones  himself, 
saying :  "  If  these  fellows  care  enough 
to  write  to  me,  the  least  I  can  do  is 
to  write  to  them." 

After  luncheon,  which  was  at  half- 
past  one,  he  received  some  callers  and 
declined  to  receive  some  others.  A 
good  part  of  his  time  was  spent  in  de 
fending  himself  from  the  importuni 
ties  of  those  who  wanted  him  to  make 
addresses,  write  sentiments,  introduce 
books,  or  boom  enterprises.  He  always 
treated  them  gently  as  long  as  he 
could ;  declined  unwelcome  requests  so 
considerately,  in  fact,  that  sometimes 
persistent  persons,  who  did  not  appre 
ciate  his  well-known  obstinacy,  were 
misled  and  tried  to  persuade  him 

[30] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

against  his  will.  Then  he  got  angry  at 
their  presumption,  demolished  them, 
and  sent  them  about  their  business. 

His  aversion  to  being  interviewed 
was  well  known.  He  enjoyed  talking 
to  newspaper  men — but  not  often  for 
publication.  Indeed,  he  was  far  more 
accessible  than  most  of  them  seemed 
to  realize,  and  often  discussed  great 
questions  with  great  freedom;  but 
when  they  asked,  "Can  I  print  any  of 
this?"  he  would  be  apt  to  shake  his 
head,  or  dictate  a  formal  sentence  or 
two,  and  have  it  repeated  verbatim. 
To  one  young  man  who  kept  on  try 
ing  to  get  the  ex-President's  opinion 
of  how  Mr.  McKinley  was  attending 
to  his  own  business  with  regard  to 
Porto  Rico,  Mr.  Cleveland  finally  re 
plied:  "That,  sir,  is  a  matter  of  too 
great  importance  to  discuss  in  a  five- 

[31   ] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

minute  interview,  now  rapidly  draw 
ing  to  its  close." 

In  the  afternoon  he  would  take  a 
drive  or  a  walk.  He  hated  to  walk. 
Dr.  Bryant  told  him  he  ought  to ;  but 
he  said  the  doctor  did  not  know  what 
he  was  talking  about. 

Dean  West,  who  walked  with  him 
most  frequently,  sometimes  had  to 
trap  him  into  it.  He  would  call  at  the 
house  and  send  up  word  that  it  was  a 
fine  day  for  a  walk.  An  answer  would 
come  back  that  it  was  "utterly  impos 
sible — Mr.  Cleveland  was  too  busy." 
The  professor  would  wait  in  the  hall. 
Presently  Mr.  Cleveland,  fearing  that 
he  had  hurt  his  good  friend's  feelings, 
would  come  out  of  the  room  and  peer 
down  over  the  balustrade.  "Which 
way  are  you  going?"  he  would  call. 
"Yes,  sir,"  the  professor  would  an- 

[32] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

swer,  taking  pains  not  to  commit  him 
self.  "Well,"  the  voice  would  come 
down,  "if  you're  going  by  the  post- 
office,  I  will  go  that  far  with  you, —  I 
have  an  important  letter  to  mail, — 
but  not  a  step  farther.  I'm  all  worn 
out  and  I'm  very  busy." 

Then,  when  the  post-office  was 
reached,  "Just  a  block  more,"  would 
be  suggested,  and  finally  they  would  go 
on  down  past  Carnegie  Lake  for  a  good 
two  hours'  stroll,  and  often  the  ex- 
President  would  enjoy  it  very  much ; 
but  would  abuse  his  friend  soundly  for 
it  afterward  to  the  doctor,  sometimes 
making  an  open  accusation  of  their 
entering  into  a  conspiracy  with  Mrs. 
Cleveland  against  his  peace  and  hap 
piness. 

Sometimes  after  his  walk  he  would 
take  a  cup  of  tea  in  the  library  with 

[33] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

Mrs.  Cleveland  and  the  others  who 
might  have  dropped  in,  provided  they 
were  among  those  who  dropped  in 
often,  for  meeting  new  people  was  irk 
some  to  him.  Once,  when  he  was  start 
ing  out  for  a  walk,  a  gushing  lady  from 
out  of  town  caught  him.  She  told  him 
how  glad  she  was  to  see  him,  how  much 
better  he  looked  than  the  last  time  she 
saw  him,  how  glad  her  husband  would 
be  to  know  that  she  had  seen  him,  and 
how  much  it  would  mean  to  her  chil 
dren  when  she  told  them  she  had  seen 
him.  He  waited  gravely  until  she  had 
finished,  then  bowed  sedately,  turned 
home,  and  could  not  be  persuaded  to 
take  a  walk  again  for  a  week. 

His  aversion  to  experiences  of  that 
sort  was  intense.  One  day,  while  fish 
ing  with  a  few  friends  in  his  launch  off 
Gray  Gables,  a  stranger  approached  in 

[34] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

another  launch,  and,  discovering  Mr. 
Cleveland,  proceeded  to  circle  around, 
staring  at  close  range.  Not  only  was 
the  one  stared  at  miserably  bored,  but 
the  fishing  was  spoiled  for  his  guests. 
On  the  third  lap  around  the  stranger's 
launch  broke  down.  There  was  no 
thing  for  him  to  do  now  but  row  home, 
four  miles  away,  against  a  head  wind, 
while  the  guests  in  the  other  boat 
rejoiced  in  silence.  Mr.  Cleveland 
watched  the  man's  futile  efforts  for  a 
moment,  then  said,  "Well,  Brad,  I 
guess  we  'd  better  give  him  a  lift."  For 
once  the  faithful  old  Brad  did  not  obey 
with  alacrity.  "Oh,  it 's  the  only  thing 
to  do,"  said  Mr.  Cleveland.  So  Brad 
drew  near,  tossed  out  a  line,  and  towed 
the  crimson-faced  intruder  across  the 
bay,  while  the  ex-President  sat  in  the 
stern,  with  his  back  to  the  stranger, 

[35] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 
smoking  gravely  and  saying  nothing. 

After  dinner  he  played  billiards  and 
did  most  of  his  writing,  nearly  always 
ending  the  evening  with  a  game  of 
cribbage  with  Mrs.  Cleveland  or  some 
of  the  neighbors.  He  was  a  very  good 
cribbage  player,  but  an  indifferent  bil 
liard  shot.  After  giving  his  guest  the 
best  cue,  he  usually  managed  to  get 
the  crookedest  one  in  the  rack  for  him 
self,  one  with  a  worn-out,  hardened 
tip.  But  he  tried  hard  and  played 
with  a  sober,  melancholy  earnestness, 
watching  each  shot  as  if  it  were  the 
most  important  matter  in  the  world. 

In  cribbage  Commodore  Benedict 
was  his  most  famous  opponent.  These 
two  had  kept  score  of  their  games  to 
gether  for  many  years.  At  the  time  of 
Mr.  Cleveland's  death  Mr.  Benedict 

was  in  the  lead.  On  the  morning  after 

[36] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

the  funeral  this  devoted  old  friend  sent 
for  the  well-worn  cribbage-board  over 
which  they  had  leaned  so  often,  and, 
summoning  one  of  Mr.  Cleveland's 
younger  friends  with  whom  he  had 
often  played  the  game  in  his  latter 
days,  said:  "We  will  play  one  game 
together  in  memory  of 'the  Admiral'" 
(his  name  for  Mr.  Cleveland),  adding: 
"I  think  that  is  what  he  would  like  us 
to  do."  And  so  these  two — the  old  op 
ponent  and  the  young  one — seated 
under  an  apple  tree  on  the  Cleveland 
property,  silently  played  the  game 
through  to  the  finish,  and  the  young 
man  won. 

IV 

To  the  last,  even  after  he  was  obliged 
to  give  up  shooting  and  fishing,  he 
was  fond  of  talking  about  it  with 
others.  He  would  tell  with  a  reminis- 

[37] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

cent  twinkle  of  the  time  he  was  per 
suaded  to  try  a  big  eight-bore  gun  for 
brant,  and  was  almost  kicked  out  of 
the  blind  by  the  recoil.  "I  don't  know 
what  happened  to  the  brant,  but  I  found 
myself  in  a  heap  at  the  bottom  of  the 
blind."  He  would  tell  of  the  time  he 
shot  a  certain  rare  bird  under  unusual 
conditions.  "Well,  I  got  that  bird,  but 
it  was  n't  fair, — it  was  n't  fair."  He 
manifested  interest  for  the  first  time  in 
a  young  caller  when  the  latter  hap 
pened  to  remark  that  in  his  opinion  the 
black  duck  was  not  generally  appre 
ciated.  "That's  right,"  declared  Mr. 
Cleveland  warmly,  "one  of  the  finest 
birds  that  fly.  They  are  not  appreciated 
because  they  have  n't  a  fine-sounding 
name  like  'canvasback.'  But  they  taste 
as  good  and  are  a  great  deal  smarter. 
I  tell  you,  when  a  fellow  gets  a  right 

[38] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

and  left  on  black  ducks,  he's  doing 
about  as  good  shooting  as  any  one  can 
ask.  Aren't  they  great  fellows  for 
towering  up  in  the  air  just  as  you  rise 
to  shoot!" 

Though  he  did  not  say  so  he  had 
made  more  than  one  such  double  him 
self.  He  was  a  fine  duck  shot.  He  was 
not  so  skilful  at  quail.  "They're  too 
quick  for  me,"  he  would  say.  For  though 
ducks  fly  faster,  the  sportsman  can 
generally  see  them  coming.  The  great 
temptation  is  to  shoot  before  they  are 
within  range. "Good  waiting" is  a  prime 
requisite  of  the  art.  But  with  quail  whir 
ring  up  in  the  thick  woods  there  is  no 
time  to  wait.  Duck  shooting  requires 
deliberation  and  calm  judgment; 
quail  shooting  dash  and  instinctive 
action.  President  Roosevelt,  if  he  shot 
small  game,  ought  to  be  better  at  quail 
[39] 


MR   CLEVELAND 

than  was  Mr.  Cleveland,  while  the 
latter  should  be  better  at  ducks  than 
Mr.  Roosevelt.  The  symbolism  may 
be  taken  for  what  it  is  worth.  Every 
temperament  has  the  qualities  of  its 
defects. 

Once  "while  in  Washington,"  to  use 
the  ex-President's  phrase  for  being 
President,  he  brought  home  a  number 
of  wild  swans  he  had  shot  down  South, 
and  sent  one  as  a  compliment  to  each 
member  of  his  Cabinet  and  to  some  of 
his  other  associates.  "Well,  all  the  boys 
thanked  me  politely  for  remembering 
them,  but  none  of  them  seemed  to 
have  much  to  say  about  how  they  en 
joyed  the  birds.  Carlisle,  I  found,  had 
his  cooked  on  a  night  when  he  was 
dining  out.  Another,  when  I  asked 
him,  said  he  hoped  I  would  n't  mind, 
but  he  had  sent  it  home  to  his  old  mo- 

[40] 


CLEVELAND 
ther.  Thurber  did  n't  mention  his  bird 
at  all  for  two  days.  Finally  I  asked  him 
about  it.  'Thurber,  did  you  get  that 
swan  all  right?' 

"'Yes,  sir,  oh,  yes,  I  got  the  swan 
all  right,  thank  you,'  and  he  bent  over 
his  desk,  and  seemed  to  be  very  busy. 

"Tine  bird,'  I  said. 

"'Yes,  sir,  fine  bird,'  and  went  on 
working. 

'"Enjoy  eating  him,  Thurber?' 

"  He  waited  a  minute,"  then  he  said, 
'Well,  sir,  I  guess  they  didn't  cook 
him  right  at  my  house.  They  cooked 
him  only  two  days,'  and  he  went  on 
working  without  cracking  a  smile." 

Mr.  Cleveland  resented  the  lies 
about  the  enormous  bags  he  brought 
home  from  shooting,  even  more,  ap 
parently,  than  misrepresentations  of 
his  political  acts;  at  least,  he  seemed 

[41   ] 


CLEVELAND 
to  cherish  the  resentment  longer.  The 
other  lies  ceased  to  be  believed.  "  I  'm 
no  pot-hunter,"  he  used  to  say  with 
spirit,  "and  I  never  was." 

In  his  strolls  about  Princeton  he 
always  took  appreciative  note  of  the 
points  of  any  bird-dog  that  he  might 
happen  to  see;  and  once  when  a  caller 
was  followed  into  the  library  at  "West- 
land"  by  a  too  devoted  Irish  setter  the 
hospitable  master  of  the  house  pro 
tested  against  the  efforts  of  the  owner 
to  put  the  dog  out.  "No,  no,  he  does  n't 
want  to  wait  out  in  the  cold  while  we 
are  in  here  enjoy  ing  ourselves.  Let  him 
stay,  let  him  stay.  I  always  like  a  good 
dog ; "  and  the  setter  seeming  to  under 
stand,  as  setters  often  do,  walked 
across  the  room  with  considerable  dig 
nity,  settled  himself  comfortably  at 
the  feet  of  the  master  of  Westland, 

[42] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

and  with  his  muzzle  on  the  floor 
looked  up  and  blinked  jeeringly  at  his 
owner. 

Mr.  Cleveland  watched  with  fond 
pride  the  budding  of  the  sportsman's 
instinct  in  his  son,  and  he  used  to  tell 
how  "up  there  at  Tarn  worth  that  boy 
will  lie  on  the  bridge  half  a  day  to 
catch  one  or  two  small  trout,"-— pa 
tience  and  carefulness,  as  he  often  said, 
being  the  supreme  qualities  for  the 
true  fisherman. 

On  the  opening  of  the  rabbit  season 
these  two  would  make  an  expedition 
to  a  friend's  farm  at  Rocky  Hill,  three 
miles  from  Princeton,  and  there  the 
boy  had  his  first  real  shooting,  coached 
and  encouraged  by  his  father.  It  was  all 
very  simple  and  informal,  like  a  rabbit 
shoot  by  any  other  American  father 
and  son,  quite  different  from  a  "drive" 

[43] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

in  the  royal  preserves  abroad;  and  it 
was  hard  for  the  other  children  in  the 
family  to  understand  the  elaborate  de 
scriptions  of  the  day's  sport  in  some 
of  the  city  papers.  They  tried  their 
best,  however.  "The  hounds  from  the 
Cleveland  kennels,"  one  of  them  read 
aloud;  and  then  after  a  moment's 
thought  exclaimed:  "Why,  that  must 
mean  old  Brownie!" 

v 

THOUGH  he  knew  only  a  few  of  them 
intimately,  Mr.  Cleveland  showed  a 
close  interest  in  his  fellow  townsmen. 
It  would  probably  amaze  some  of 
them  to  be  told  how  much  he  knew 
about  them.  He  had  an  orthodox 
neighborly  spirit  of  the  old-fashioned 
kind,  was  concerned  in  the  affairs  of 
the  young  people,  and  could  not  see 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

why  So -and- So  did  not  make  a  match 
with  So-and-So. 

He  knew  far  more,  too,  about  the 
undergraduates  than  they  were  aware 
of.  They  seldom  saw  him,  except  oc 
casionally  at  a  baseball  game  or  in  his 
strolls  about  the  country,  for  he  usu 
ally  avoided  the  village  streets — per 
haps  he  was  afraid  of  meeting  gushing 
ladies  of  the  sort  mentioned.  But  he 
knew  what  was  going  on,  and  he  was 
especially  interested  in  those  who  were 
working  their  way  through  college. 
He  had  all  sorts  of  ways  of  finding  out 
how  they  were  faring,  and  more  than 
one  of  them  has  the  late  ex-President 
to  thank,  directly  or  indirectly,  for 
finding  the  means  of  paying  his  ex 
penses  while  getting  his  diploma.  There 
was  one  young  man  who  needed  two 
hundred  dollars  to  get  through  the 

[45] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

year.  Mr.  Cleveland  sent  for  him  and 
told  him  that  his  library  was  in  sore 
need  of  cataloguing.  So  the  young  man 
worked  for  a  few  days,  and  received 
a  check  for  one  hundred  dollars.  That 
was  half  of  what  he  needed.  A  month 
or  two  later  Mr.  Cleveland  mixed  the 
books  up  a  little  and  had  the  student 
do  it  over  again.  Thus  the  young  man 
received  his  two  hundred  dollars  and 
retained  his  self-respect. 

It  was  one  of  the  "old  customs"  for 
the  freshmen  to  march  around  to 
Westland  on  the  night  after  they 
became  sophomores;  also  for  the  en 
tire  student  body  to  ask  him  for  a  few 
long  words  of  congratulation  when 
ever  they  won  an  athletic  champion 
ship.  Mr.  Cleveland  generally  heard 
them  coming,  and  usually  tried  to  get 

out  of  it.  "  Oh,  let  'em  think  I  'm  out 

[46] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

of  town,"  or  "Tell  them  I'm  too 
busy;"  but  he  always  went  out  and 
spoke  to  them,  and  I  think  he  was 
pleased  that  they  wanted  to  come. 

On  his  seventieth  birthday  the  un 
dergraduates  presented  him  with  an 
enormous  silver  loving-cup,  the  spokes 
man  holding  it  as  he  would  a  bag  of 
bats.  I  never  heard  Mr.  Cleveland  say 
so,  but  I  fancy  he  valued  it  even  more 
than  he  did  the  gold  cup  which  some 
of  his  Princeton  friends  gave  him  up 
on  the  same  happy  occasion. 

Except  for  one  or  two  places,  he 
never  dined  out  if  he  could  help  it. 
"But  I  dined  there  once!"  he  would 
say  in  an  injured  tone  as  if  he  thought 
that  ought  to  score  him  off.  But  when 
induced  to  go  he  enjoyed  it  after  all, 
and  delighted  scared  young  matrons 
with  his  amiability  and  his  interest  in 

[47] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

their  opinions.  As  one  of  them  put  it: 
"He  talked  to  me  as  if  what  I  had  to 
say  interested  him!"  Probably  it  did. 
He  was  not  the  kind  to  smile  blandly 
at  women  or  ask  condescendingly: 
"And  how's  the  baby?" 

His  interest  in  the  college  itself  was, 
of  course,  keen,  and  he  took  the  affairs 
of  the  little  academic  world  quite  as 
seriously,  if  not  as  frantically,  as  some 
of  the  rest  of  us,  even  to  wanting 
Princeton  to  win  every  time  in  ath 
letics.  Like  many  modest  men  who 
have  not  happened  to  experience  a  for 
mal  academic  training,  he  manifested 
great  regard  for  the  erudition  of  those 
who  had — unless  they  attempted  to 
impose  upon  him  with  it.  Then  he  saw 
through  them  instantly  and  never  for 
got  it.  It  may  sound  odd,  but  he 
seemed  really  to  think  himself  highly 

[48] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

honored  when  asked  to  serve  on  the 
Board  of  Trustees,  though  the  gowns 
and  gorgeousness  of  the  academic  pro 
cessions  may  not  have  seemed  to  him 
indispensable  to  the  "plain  living  and 
high  thinking"  of  a  rural  university. 
However,  he  regarded  the  office  as  a 
trust  as  well  as  an  honor,  and  gave  it 
more  hard  thinking  than  some  of  those 
who  were  not  as  yet  ex-Presidents. 
He  did  not  enjoy  being  treated  differ 
ently  from  "the  rest  of  the  boys,"  as 
he  called  his  fellow  members  of  the 
board.  At  the  Commencement  exer 
cises  the  president  of  the  university 
used  to  seat  Mr.  Cleveland  (looking 
gently  resigned)  at  the  right  of  the 
university  throne — an  ornate  balda- 
chino,  which  the  unappreciative  un 
dergraduates  term  "the  buggy."  "I 
stuck  it  out  while  Patton  was  there," 
[49] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

Mr.  Cleveland  remarked  one  day  in 
his  whimsically  plaintive  voice;  "but 
when  Wilson  came  in  I  struck.  I  told 
him  I  was  n't  going  to  do  that  any 
more — I  wanted  to  sit  with  the  rest 
of  the  boys,"  and  he  did  thereafter. 

One  thing  which  helped  to  mislead 
the  outside  world  as  to  the  essential 
simplicity  of  Mr.  Cleveland's  nature 
was  the  heavy,  involved  style  of  many, 
though  not  all,  of  his  writings  and 
public  utterances.  It  was  so  different 
from  the  easy  idiomatic  colloquialism 
of  his  conversation.  In  his  writings  he 
invented  several  famous  phrases  such 
as  "innocuous  desuetude"  and  "the 
restless  rich."  In  conversation  he  was 
given  to  more  homely  expressions.  He 
was  fond  of  old  saws,  such  as  "  There !" 
(when  playing  cribbage)  "I  knew  I'd 
get  my  head  into  a  bag;"  or,  when 

[50] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

something  of  a  confidential  nature  was 
related  to  him,  "Well,  I'll  put  that 
in  the  back  of  my  head  where  there 
is  n't  any  mouth."  This  apparent  in 
congruity  can  of  course  be  partly  ex 
plained  by  the  simple  fact  that  when 
expressing  himself  formally  he  was 
writing  in  obedience  to  the  instinct  of 
a  trained  lawyer  and  with  a  view  to  his 
official  responsibility  as  a  statesman. 
Moreover,  the  influence  of  the  sono 
rous  English  of  the  Bible  and  his  fa 
ther's  sermons  doubtless  had  their  ef 
fect  when  he  approached  the  task  of 
writing ;  whereas  when  engaged  in  in 
formal  conversation  he  was  a  man 
merely  talking  to  other  humans,  most 
of  whom  he  had  to  put  at  ease.  There 
may,  however,  be  another  cause  which  ^ 
helps  to  explain  this  and  many  other 
things  about  Mr.  Cleveland  not  gen- 

[  51   ] 


MR.  CLEVELAND 

erally  understood:  his  innate  shyness. 
No  public  character  ever  hated  pub 
licity  more.  Writing  is  essentially  a 
public  performance.  Unconsciously, 
perhaps,  he  hid  behind  his  style.  This 
may  help  to  account  for  the  fact  that 
when  under  stress  of  deep  feeling  his 
style  was  more  direct  and  clear,  his 
sentences  more  terse  and  simple.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  well  known  that 
he  was  not  in  the  least  perturbed  when 
it  came  to  public  speaking.  (This  is 
often  the  case  with  shy  natures.)  It 
was  not  what  he  himself  had  to  say, 
but  what  others  might  say  to  him  that 
disturbed  him. 

As  in  everything  he  undertook,  Mr. 
Cleveland  was  a  most  careful  worker 
when  he  wrote.  Whether  it  was  a  pub 
lic  address,  a  political  essay,  or  a  shoot 
ing  sketch,  he  never  began  the  actual, 

[52] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

painful  process  of  writing  until  after 
a  period  of  careful  brooding  on  the 
subject.  Then  came  a  mood  of  strong 
aversion  to  the  task.  He  hated  to  write 
it  out.  "  I  was  a  fool  to  undertake  this. 
I  might  have  known  I  'd  get  my  head 
in  a  bag.  I  haven't  time  to  do  these 
things.  I  don't  know  enough!"  and  so 
on  until  he  finally  made  himself  get  at 
it,  saying,  "Well,  this  is  the  last  time 
I'll  ever  do  anything  of  this  sort." 
Then  when  at  last  the  plunge  was 
made,  cheerfully  and  patiently  he 
forged  each  sentence  through  to  the 
end.  And  when  the  end  was  reached, 
his  revisions,  though  careful  and  nu 
merous,  were  almost  never  structural, 
—merely  verbal  and  phrasal.  He  often 
amplified  a  little,  but  the  framework  in 
variably  remained  as  was  first  planned. 
"I'm  afraid  it's  pretty  bad,"  he  used 

[53]    ' 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

to  say  dejectedly  to  Mrs.  Cleveland, 
or  any  other  he  might  chance  to  con 
sult  when  the  work  in  hand  was  fin 
ished. 

"Why  don't  you  read  it  aloud?" 
would  be  suggested. 

"No,  I  don't  want  to  take  your 
time." 

"At  least  won't  you  read  the  intro 
duction?" 

And  then  when  that  was  read  he 
would  go  on  to  the  end.  He  felt  much 
better  about  it  after  that. 

He  once  spoke  of  the  care  with 
which  he  prepared  his  messages  at 
Washington.  Usually  he  was  days  do 
ing  them.  He  kept  them  by  him  in  a 
convenient  drawer  of  his  desk  at  the 
White  House,  taking  them  out  from 
time  to  time,  to  make  annotations,  to 
show  them  to  Mr.  Carlisle  or  others. 

[54] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

He  never  did  anything  hastily  if  he 
could  help  it,  though  he  could  perform 
huge  tasks  at  a  single  sitting  when 
under  pressure.  The  celebrated  Vene 
zuelan  message  was  a  case  in  point. 
On  the  evening  of  his  return  from 
the  fishing  trip  (for  which  he  was  so 
severely  criticized)  Secretary  Olney 
dined  with  him  and  they  talked  the 
Venezuela  matter  over  until  half-past 
ten.  Then  he  sat  down  and  wrote  un 
til  half-past  four  in  the  morning,  sent 
his  manuscript  to  the  stenographer, 
revised  it  by  breakfast  time,  and  at  ten 
o'clock  despatched  it  to  the  Capitol. 
But  he  had  been  thinking  about  it  all 
through  his  fishing  trip.  That  was  why 
he  took  the  trip,  to  get  away  from  the 
turmoil  and  see  things  clearly  in  per 
spective. 

He   was  one  of  the   hardest    and 

[55] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

steadiest  toiling  presidents  we  have 
ever  had  work  for  us.  From  nine  A.M. 
to  two  A.M.  was  his  regular  shift,  with 
time  only  for  meals  and  similar  semi 
official  and  not  always  restful  diver 
sions.  But  on  many  other  occasions 
than  the  one  described  he  was  still  at 
his  desk,  working  his  way  painstak 
ingly  through  a  mass  of  papers  when 
the  sun  looked  in  through  the  win 
dows  of  the  East  Room. 

"Did  n't  you  ever  have  trouble  get 
ting  to  sleep  after  working  at  that 
rate?"  I  once  asked  him. 

"No,"  he  smiled,  "my  only  trouble 
was  to  keep  awake." 

VI 

MR.  CLEVELAND'S  mental  processes 
were  slow,  laborious,  thorough.  He 
worked  awkwardly.  Like  most  of  us, 

[  56] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

he  hated  to  get  to  work;  like  some  of 
us  he  hated  to  stop.  He  was  a  most 
persistent  worker,  as  he  was  a  most 
persistent  sportsman.  No  one  could 
ever  accuse  him  of  jerking  a  bass.  His 
eye  was  on  the  line  all  the  time.  And 
while  duck  shooting,  when  the  morn 
ing  flight  was  over  and  the  rest  of  the 
party,  sleepy  from  their  early  dawn 
start,  wanted  to  go  back  to  the  house 
at  noon,  he  would  stay  in  the  blind, 
watching  for  the  stray  single  or  double. 
Once  one  of  his  companions  fell  asleep 
beside  him,  and,  when  about  to  fall 
out  of  the  blind  into  the  water,  was 
rescued  by  the  ex-President,  who 
never  ceased  to  joke  him  about  it.  On 
the  "rest  days"  (certain  days  of  the 
week  when  the  state  laws  provide  a 
rest  for  the  ducks)  he  played  high- 
low-jack  and  the  game — not  for  an 
[57] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

hour  or  two,  but  all  day  long,  from 
breakfast  to  bedtime !  One  by  one  he 
would  tire  out  the  rest  of  the  party 
at  it.  In  self-defence  they  usually 
agreed  in  secret  to  play  with  him  in 
relays. 

One  day,  at  Gray  Gables,  a  fishing 
trip,  carefully  planned  with  his  boy 
Richard,  had  to  be  postponed  on  ac 
count  of  a  storm.  He  had  so  arranged 
matters  that  there  was  no  work  that 
he  could  do,  and  Richard  was  disap 
pointed.  Mr.  Cleveland  set  to  work  to 
make  him  a  willow  whistle.  Now,  for 
half  a  century  or  so,  he  had  been  given 
to  other  tasks  than  making  whistles, 
so  it  was  not  as  easy  as  it  once  was ; 
but  he  stuck  to  it.  By  tea-time  he  had 
a  perfect  whistle.  It  made  that  clear, 
shrill  note  so  dear  to  those  who  like 
to  blow  whistles.  Nor  was  the  "boy 

[58  ] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

with  a  new  whistle"  the  only  one  who 
was  proud. 

When  confronted  with  a  new  idea, 
three  distinct  expressions  of  counte 
nance  marked  the  three  stages  of  his 
remarkable  ability  to  get  to  the  heart 
of  a  complicated  problem  and  throw 
aside  all  the  rest.  First,  there  came  a 
somewhat  wistful  look  of  perplexity, 
as  if  bewildered,  almost  distressed; 
second,  there  was  a  mental  circling 
around  the  idea  in  a  receptive  attitude 
of  mind;  and  then,  third,  a  sudden 
grasping  of  the  idea,  never  to  let  go. 
Commodore  Benedict  once  likened 
this  to  a  carrier-pigeon  when  let  loose ; 
the  hesitancy  and  the  circling  round 
and  round,  then  the  sudden,  unerring 
flight  straight  for  home. 


[59] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

VII 

ONE  day  when  Mr.  Cleveland  and 
a  small  party  of  friends  were  travel 
ling  home  in  a  private  car, — it  was  on 
the  return  trip  from  the  opening  ce 
remonies  of  the  St.  Louis  Exposition, 
— he  looked  up  from  his  game  of 
cribbage,  and  said  as  the  train  slowed 
down,  "What  place  is  this?" 

"This,"  smiled  one  of  his  compan 
ions,  an  old  and  intimate  friend,  "is  a 
place  called  Washington,"  and  just 
then  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  swung 
into  view,  looking  its  best  in  the  opa 
lescent  light  of  the  dying  day.  The 
ex-President  gazed  at  it  with  interest, 
thinking  no  doubt  of  many  things. 

"How  would  you  like  to  stop  off 
here  for  four  years  more?"  asked  his 

old  comrade. 

[60] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

Mr.  Cleveland  kept  silent  a  mo 
ment.  "Well,"  he  said,  shaking  his 
head,  "you'd  have  to  drag  me  back 
with  a  rope  to  get  me  here,"  and  he 
went  on  with  his  game. 

There  was  just  once,  according  to 
the  friend  who  related  this  incident, 
that  he  felt  otherwise  about  the  mat 
ter,  and  that  was  during  the  street 
railway  riots  out  there  in  St.  Louis ; 
and  the  only  reason  he  wanted  to  be 
President  then  was  to  help  in  putting 
a  quick  end  to  the  ill  treatment  of  the 
women  and  children.  The  cry  of  a 
child  always  distressed  him.  It  made 
him  quite  miserable  sometimes  when 
he  was  walking  through  the  village. 
He  always  wanted  to  stop  and  find 
out  what  was  the  matter.  He  looked 
pained  and  puzzled  as  if  wondering 

why  such  things  had  to  be. 
[61] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

He  was  easily  moved  in  other  ways. 
At  the  annual  Commencement  exer 
cises  at  Princeton  when  the  carefully 
prepared  valedictory  oration  was  pro 
nounced  to  the  graduating  class  by 
one  of  its  members,  the  tears  always 
came  to  his  eyes.  He  loved  youth,  he 
enjoyed  having  so  much  of  it  around 
him.  That  was  one  motive,  perhaps, 
in  his  choice  of  a  college  town  for  his 
retiring  years.  "I  feel  young  at  sev 
enty,"  he  told  the  undergraduates 
when  they  presented  him  with  the  cup 
referred  to, — the  last  time,  by  the  way, 
he  ever  addressed  them, —  "because  I 
have  here  breathed  the  atmosphere  of 
vigorous  youth." 

He  liked  young  people  of  all  ages. 
He  was  much  pleased  when  they  man 
ifested  their  liking  for  him.  There  is 
no  reason  why  this  feeling  should  not 

[62] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 
be  shown  in  his  own  words,  addressed 
to  a  fifteen  year  old  schoolboy  at  Law- 
renceville. 

Princeton,  Jan.  8,  1906. 

Dear :  /  want  to  thank  you  for  the  beau 
tiful  inkstand  you  gave  me  on  Christmas  and 
to  tell  you  how  much  I  appreciated  your  re 
membrance  of  me.  I  like  the  inkstand  better 
than  any  I  have  ever  had  before;  and  when  you 
are  as  old  as  I  am,  you  will  know,  I  am  sure, 
how  gratifying  it  is  to  feel  that  there  are  boys 
and  girls  who  think  the  old  are  worth  remem 
bering.  With  every  good  holiday  wish  I  am, 
Sincerely  your  friend, 

GROVER  CLEVELAND 

His  love  of  children  was  not  merely 
an  abstract  tenderness  for  the  inherent 
beauty  and  pathos  of  new  life — he 
liked  to  have  them  around ;  he  enjoyed 
watching  them.  And  they,  with  the 
instinctive  trust  shown  by  children 
and  animals  toward  those  who  really 

appreciate  them,  enjoyed  being  with 
[63] 


MR.  CLEVELAND 

him,  liked  having  him  around.  Some 
times  he  would  spend  a  whole  day 
gravely  mending  toys,  making  wooden 
blocks  for  paper  soldiers,  constructing 
water-wheels.  Dean  West  has  told 
how  "The  Princeton  Bird  Club," 
composed  of  professors'  children  and 
others,  decided  that  the  ex-President 
was  worthy  of  honorary  membership 
to  their  body.  So  one  day  they  assem 
bled,  and  solemnly  read  an  address  of 
welcome  to  "the  Hon.  G.  Cleveland," 
who  bowed  and  accepted  the  honor  in 
a  speech  which  won  for  him  their  un 
qualified  approbation. 

Callers  who  came  quaking  into  the 
presence,  thinking,  perhaps,  "So  this 
is  the  man  who  guided  the  ship  of 
state,"  must  have  been  surprised  when, 
for  instance,  Francis,  the  youngest,  a 
handsome  boy  of  three  or  four,  came 

[64] 


CLEVELAND 
romping  in,  never  dreaming  of  fear, 
and  remarked  to  the  former  President 
of  the  United  States,  "Hello!  You've 
got  on  a  new  suit — are  those  shoes 
new,  too?" 

Callers  who  undertook  to  inform 
him  to  his  face  what  a  great  President 
he  had  been  made  him  exceedingly 
miserable  (though  he  did  not  mind 
reading  about  it  when  they  were  not 
around);  but  if  you  told  him  you  saw 
his  boy  Richard  make  a  good  catch 
playing  ball  as  you  came  in,  his  whole 
face  lighted  up  with  his  kindly  smile. 
His  attitude  toward  children  was  not 
the  smiling  condescension  many  of 
the  "Olympians"  adopt,  which  chil 
dren  hate ;  he  treated  them  with  that 
flattering  earnestness  which  children 
like.  "He  never  descended  to  their 

level,"  as  Professor  Sloane  once  put  it; 
[65] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

"he  rose  to  it."  "Some  of  the  other 
gentlemen  here  this  afternoon  left  this 
bat  behind  them,"  he  would  say  to  his 
boy.  One  day  these  two  were  seen 
walking  home  together  in  the  rain. 
Richard  was  holding  the  umbrella. 
Rather  than  let  the  boy  see  that  he 
could  not  hold  it  high  enough  the  ex- 
President  walked  all  the  way  down 
Bayard  Lane  with  his  head  and  shoul 
ders  bent  low. 

Once  on  the  train  from  New  York 
he  became  much  concerned  over  a  lit 
tle  girl  who  seemed  to  be  travelling 
alone.  Finally  he  had  to  go  and  ask 
her  about  it.  She  said  it  was  all  right, 
she  was  to  be  met  by  her  father  at 
New  Brunswick.  But  when  that  sta 
tion  was  finally  reached  the  ex-Presi 
dent,  without  saying  anything  to  the 
rest  of  his  party,  quietly  stole  out  to 
[66] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

the  rear  door,  and  watched  until  he 
saw  the  child  safe  in  her  father's  arms ; 
then  he  returned  to  the  group  he  had 
left  and  went  on  with  the  conversa 
tion  as  if  nothing  had  happened. 

VIII 

\VHEN  Mr.  Cleveland  accepted  the 
trusteeship  of  the  reorganized  Equita 
ble  Life  Assurance  Society,  and  later 
became  chairman  of  the  Association 
of  Life  Insurance  Presidents,  there 
was  considerable  misunderstanding,  as 
was  bound  to  be  the  case  with  a  man 
not  given  to  explaining  himself.  He 
knew  perfectly  well  that  he  would  be 
criticized.  But  he  did  it,  not  for  the 
benefit  of  the  insurers,  but  the  in 
sured.  He  knew  that  the  great  bulk 
of  the  money  invested  in  insurance  by 

the  fifteen  million  policy-holders  was 

[67] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

the  hard-earned  savings  of  the  com 
mon  people.  He  knew  that  where  once 
they  believed  everything  those  in  con 
trol  told  them,  now,  with  faith  shaken 
by  the  scandalous  revelations,  they 
were  inclined  to  believe  nothing.  The 
very  existence  of  insurance  as  an  in 
stitution  was  threatened.  The  impor 
tant  loss  would  be  to  the  people,  the 
loss  of  the  money  and  the  irrepa 
rable  damage  to  the  spirit  of  thrift. 
He  believed  he  could  help  reestablish 
confidence.  He  knew  that  he  could  see 
to  it  that  that  confidence  was  not 
misplaced.  And  the  broad  view  of  this 
was  service  to  the  country  at  large, 
whether  certain  wealthy  men  also 
benefited  by  it  or  not.  It  was  one  of 
the  few  opportunities  left  him  for  fur 
ther  active  usefulness  to  his  fellow  citi 
zens,  and  he  embraced  it,  despite  the 
[68] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 
adverse  advice  of  some  of  his  friends. 

Having  taken  it,  he  pitched  in  and 
worked  hard.  He  had  always  been  in 
terested  in  the  insurance  idea,  and  he 
became  more  interested  as  he  studied 
up  the  matter  in  his  thorough,  pains 
taking  way;  just  as,  when  he  became 
trustee  of  Princeton,  he  studied  the 
problem  of  higher  education  in  Ame 
rica  from  the  ground  up.  "And  now," 
one  of  the  younger  insurance  presi 
dents  used  to  say, "the  old  man  knows 
more  about  insurance  than  any  of  us." 

Moreover,  he  was  glad  of  the  op 
portunity  to  earn  by  hard  work  a  good 
salary.  He  had  use  for  it.  Like  the  ab 
surd  lies  about  his  home  life,  the  sto 
ries  about  his  private  fortune  have 
since  been  seen — even  by  those  who 
told  them — to  be  merely  imaginary. 
Surprise  was  expressed  all  over  the 
[69] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

country  at  the  small  amount  of  his 
estate  when  his  will  was  probated.  By 
thrift  and  simple  living  throughout  a 
long,  arduous  career  he  had  accumu 
lated  enough  to  leave  his  family  com 
fortably  off,  but  by  no  means  rich.  The 
lies  were  probably  started  and  fed  by 
the  imagination  of  those  who  look 
upon  everything  in  life,  even  the  pre 
sidency,  as  a  money-making  propo 
sition,  and  who  could  not  quite  see 
themselves  resisting  the  opportunity, 
for  instance,  of  going  short  of  the  mar 
ket  on  the  day  before  issuing  the  Ve 
nezuelan  message,  and  thus  acquiring 
a  fortune  overnight. 

There  was  still  another  reason  why 
he  was  glad  to  do  this  work — it  was 
because  it  was  work.  He  believed  in 
wholesome  activity,  exerting  one's 
God-given  faculties;  in  work  for  work's 
[70] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

sake,  aside  from  the  other  normal  sa 
tisfaction  of  profiting  by  one's  own  la 
bor — not  that  of  others. 

That  was  why  he  felt  so  strongly 
about  the  anomalous  position  of  "these 
poor  ex-presidents  of  ours,"  men 
trained  and  habituated  for  energizing, 
fitted  by  remarkable  experience  for 
great  usefulness,  suddenly  cast  to  one 
side.  Long  before  he  was  persuaded 
to  sum  up  his  views  formally  upon  the 
question  he  used  often  to  talk  about 
it  informally.  "Something  ought  to 
be  done,"  he  would  say  plaintively, 
shaking  his  head.  "As  it  is  now,  no 
thing  seems  to  be  dignified  enough  for 
them.  Now  there  was  Harrison;  he 
went  into  law.  The  first  time  he  got 
up  to  argue  a  case  in  court  everybody 
laughed;  it  seemed  so  queer.  I  know 

how  it  is.  I  went  back  into  law  my- 
[71] 


s 

MR-  CLEVELAND 
self  when  I  left  Washington  the  first 
time.  I  walked  into  the  supreme  court, 
and  there  on  the  bench  sat  two  judges 
I  had  appointed  myself.  No,  it  doesn't 

do So  a  fellow  has  to  remain  a 

loafer  all  the  rest  of  his  life  simply  be 
cause  he  happened  to  be  President.  It 
is  n't  right.  It  isn't  fair." 

"Why  don't  you  write  about  this 
subject? "was  suggested. 

"I'd  like  to— I'd  like  to  very  well, 
only  they'd  say  I  was  trying  to  feather 
my  own  nest." 

When  he  finally  wrote  his  paper  on 
this  important  subject  he  prefaced  his 
discussion  by  stating  that  he  had 
enough  for  his  own  needs,  and  that  no 
one  should  take  what  he  said  as  a  plea 
in  his  own  behalf.  As  if  any  one  would ! 

IN  his  last  years  Mr.  Cleveland's  fig- 

[72] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

ure  lost  the  fulness  usually  shown  in 
the  pictures.  His  face  was  seamed  and 
rugged — far  stronger  and  finer-look 
ing  than  in  any  of  the  portraits.  His 
tread  became  more  slow  and  mea 
sured,  his  daily  strolls  were  shorter, 
his  shooting  trips  were  postponed 
"until  next  fall;"  but,  mentally  and 
physically,  he  remained  a  strong  man, 
a  big  man  in  every  way.  His  hand  was 
big  and  gave  the  feeling  of  great  power 
when  he  grasped  yours.  His  gaze  was 
direct  and  very  observant,  but  not 
uncomfortably  searching.  He  was  one 
of  those  who  gave  the  sense  of  look 
ing  for  your  good  points,  not  your 
bad  ones.  His  smile  was  warm,  kind, 
radiant,  a  benediction.  The  occasions 
when  I  had  the  memorable  privilege 
of  talking  with  him  seem  very  few, 

but  my  last  sight  of  him  alive  was 

[73] 


MR-  CLEVELAND 

with  this  smile  as,  turning  slowly 
and  heavily  to  go  upstairs,  he  said: 
"Good-by." 

Cicero  in  "De  Senectute"  tells  of 
the  pleasures  and  satisfactions  of  old 
age,  but  his  own  latter  years  were  sad 
dened  with  family  troubles  and  em 
bittered  by  political  strife ;  he  met  his 
end  at  the  hands  of  paid  assassins,  who 
found  him  an  unresisting  victim,  alone 
at  his  country  seat. 

It  is  rare  that  we  find  in  history  a 
great  public  leader  whose  life  was  more 
completely  rounded,  or  whose  death 
was  more  beautiful,  than  that  of  our 
late  President.  Full  of  years,  mellow, 
serene,  loved  by  his  friends,  revered 
by  his  country  and  admired  by  the 
whole  world,  he  died  as  ordinary  peo 
ple  die,  in  his  own  home,  surrounded 
[74] 


CLEVELAND 
by  those  he  loved  most.  His  death, 
like  his  chief  characteristics  in  life,  was 
normal.  But  for  the  very  reason  that 
he  was  "a  man  of  common  qualities 
raised  to  the  nth  power,"  his  example 
in  history  should  be  the  more  useful 
to  the  sons  of  men. 


THE  END 


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DEC     4    1932 


APR   28  1936 


APR  17    194 


MAY 


Big 


JUN   19   1947 


MAR 


1948 


I9Mar52LU 
Jf9IUar'56Vl|f 


QEC1513S57? 


!M 


1145 


LD  21 


/ 


191194 


\- 


\ 


